


i'm happy (hope you're happy too)

by jadeddiva



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, cs au week, season 5 canon divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 21:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7522999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where Killian does not die, and he and Emma stay Dark Ones.  5A canon divergence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm happy (hope you're happy too)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, David Bowie, for the title.

 

It is strange to see the future.

Emma had known but hadn’t, not really, not to the full extent that she does now.  The knowledge came with the Darkness itself – an understanding of all that is and was and every could or would be, something she had always assumed with Gold but never really truly _understood_ until now. 

Now that the Darkness is within in, part of her.

Now that she is a Dark One.

Time rushes by and then slows down, full of infinite possibilities that are hers for the making if she so desires (and some of them, yes, she does desire).

She doesn’t need to walk but she enjoys the click of her heels against the pavement as she travels through a silent Storybrooke, the sway of her hips reflected in the windows of the shuttered storefronts (she enjoys reveling just a bit more in herself than she has in some time).  She is alone: it is not yet nine, but everyone is hidden away, plotting how to rid themselves of the Dark Ones.

Emma stops at the intersection, looks down the street.  Through the blinds, she can see the huddled masses inside Granny’s and thinks _good – let them plan_.  She has no reason to be afraid of them – even with Regina and Zelena’s combined power, they are no match for the Darkness.

“Should a lady such as yourself be wandering these streets at night?” he asks, appearing suddenly behind her.  His breath his hot against her neck, and she can feel the light press of his hook against her hip, touching, teasing, tempting.

“Are you implying that I’m not safe?” she responds, turning slowly with raised eyebrows.  “That I can’t take care of myself?”

Killian’s meets her look with a raised eyebrow of his own.

“You never know what lurks in the shadows,” he says, offering his arm, and Emma knows they will walk by Granny’s, a pair of intimidating, immortal creatures dressed in black.  And she knows that the people inside will be frightened (or will they? Perhaps seeing them will make the townspeople will work harder to defeat them - or perhaps they will ignore them).  She knows that afterwards, they may go to his ship, or to the house, but it will end with her mouth on him and his hands in her hair, and there will be new bruises on her neck that she will remove with magic as soon as they are done.

“You’re right,” she tells him, taking his arm with a smile, heart racing.  She loves it when they play this game.  “Can’t be too careful in Storybrooke these days.”

 

…

 

It was not always easy. 

First, there was the anger (he has seen ships catch fire and that is how he feels, like he is burning from top to bottom, everything turning to smoke and ashes from the intensity of his anger at Emma for making this decision for him).

Then, there was the pain, and with the pain came retaliation.  Shops destroyed, homes burned, a few random lives lost (Killian did not care much for most of the denizens of Storybrooke but he found his caring to be somewhat lessened the deeper and deeper he swam into Darkness).

There was the Darkness itself, pulling him in, tempting him with grand plans for revenge against the Crocodile that fell apart when he became bored with them, and even though he pushed back against the demon in his head and the Darkness in his soul, it slowly consumed him 

And then, mourning.  Days spent on his ship, staring at the timbers of the ceiling, of the beams that supported the upper deck.  He watched the sunlight cast shadows across the room, dark and bright then dark again as night settled and the last vestiges of who he was fought for dominance (they’re still there, inside, merged with the Darkness yet clamoring for freedom, but he can silence them like he always does with drink or sex or both).

He could feel _her_ in his bones, in his blood, in the air around him even though she stayed far, far away from him (they are one in the same now, Emma and he).   He can feel her and he misses her and he hates her and he loves her and he needs her and so he goes to her.

At first it isn’t easy, not when he still harbors ill will towards Emma for not listening to him.  At first it isn’t easy, not when Emma is defensive and vindictive and they take turns hurting each other in anger and healing each other and fucking each other over and over and over again in a cycle that promises to continue forever if they let it (and some days he wants it to).

They move into the large house together, and act out scenes of domestic tranquility: Emma makes the bed, and Killian fluffs the pillows;  Killian makes them tea; they stand beside each other at the sink, brushing their teeth, a pair of Dark Ones engaged in such a random activity.  Killian knows why he forces it (an attempt to forget, to pretend) and he thinks that is what Emma must be doing too. 

Until she does something that reminds him of his death, or he does something that makes he angry, and then the cycle repeats.

At first it isn’t easy to be so mundane when there is so much power inside of them but then there is a moment -  a glance across the dining room table of their very large and very empty house, where they are now shadows of their former selves, with no need to eat or drink but still going through the motions nonetheless.

Emma puts her fork down mid-macaroni bite, watches as Killian does as well.

They both laugh at the same time – large, soul-consuming laughs at the ridiculousness of their actions, of their choices, of everything that has brought them here today because now that the Darkness has settled, it’s easier to see what is left in the light.

“Whatever happens,” Emma says softly, “we still have each other.  We still love each other.”

“Aye,” is Killian’s response, because it is true.  He loves her with every beat of his tainted heart.

And then, it becomes easy.

 

…

 

She remembers the first time together as Dark Ones, her fingers twisting in the hair at the back of his head as she changes the angle of the kiss, back arching up into him, heels digging into the soft earth beneath them.

(It is strange, these fields of middlemist that they keep finding themselves in; she can feel every blade of grass and every petal of every flower, hundreds and hundreds of them still in the moonlight as they move above them and over them, these two new Dark Ones.)

He bites her lip, then, and she can taste blood and she doesn’t mind it (she would have, before, but she doesn’t now because it is no longer something foreign and dark to her, now that she has been consumed by the Darkness).  She breaks the kiss and licks her lips slowly, watching his gaze fall to her mouth, spellbound, like this is part of her new powers.

For all she knows, maybe it is.

“I didn’t tell you to stop,” she tells Killian, and he growls, body sinking back into her, lips against her shoulder as he shifts his body, slides into her once more.

Her nails rake down his back and he growls against, and she can feel everything – every movement of every blade of grass and petal of every flower, every beat of her heart and his (that is when she thinks _this will be okay, they will be okay, everything will be okay_ ).

He changes the angle of his thrusts, and she cries out, feeling everything.

 

…

 

It is strange, to have two Dark Ones.  The Darkness does not seem to know how to split itself between them so there are moments where he is more powerful than she is, or moments where she bends him to her will with little more than a look.

Like always, they are better together than they are apart.

(Storybrooke soon learns this the hard way.)

 

…

 

He remembers their first time, in Camelot, the day he thought of a thousand times in a thousand different ways over the course of a thousand different days. 

He’s seduced women before, whispered promises against their skin, loved them in his own way and left them in his wake, but this is different.  There are no hollow words of praise on his lips, no names to remember which he will soon forget, no lost loves in the back of his mind haunting every waking thought. 

Instead, there is only ale, and lightness, and the beauty that is Emma before him, still dressed in white from yet another Camelot banquet earlier that evening.   Her hair is spread out across the satin duvet of the enormous four poster bed, and he can think about is the weight of it in his hands earlier that night (they had left, full of wine and ale and hope and lust, eyes only for each other, fingers reaching and grasping, unable to control themselves in the corridors). 

She looks up at him, a shy smile on her face, and then she starts to laugh.

Oddly enough, he can’t help but smile.

“That’s not quite the way to get a man’s attention, love,” he tells her, brushing his lips against hers, and Emma reaches for him, grabbing his hair like she does (and he loves). 

“I’m sorry,” she tells him, and he can hear the happiness in her voice which mirrors the happiness in his heart (he has crossed realms for her, lost her and found her and lost her again, and now she is here, underneath him, and he cannot be happier).

The look in her eyes changes, and she cocks her head to the side before flipping them.  “I can make it up to you,” she practically purrs, and he can’t help but smile wider. 

“If the lady insists…”

He lowers his lips to taste the skin at the hollow of her throat, and she moans.

 

…

 

He hurts her by leaving.

He doesn’t do it often, but the Darkness takes and tempts and lies and she will wake up and he will not be there.  Or, they will fight, and he will leave her for days on end, and his ship will disappear from the harbor, and she knows that it is less because he needs the space and more because he knows what that space does to her.

These are the days when her parents creep back into her life like they creep up to her front door, terrified and yet earnest in their desire to fix this, to fix her, to somehow turn her back into the Emma she was instead of the Emma she is now.

The problem is that she likes this new Emma – an Emma who is not the Savior and not beholden to anyone but herself and him, an Emma who takes what she wants and does what she wants and who she wants (and that is always Killian).   But she opens the door to them nonetheless, and offers them tea.

“Is Killian gone?” her father asks as he closes the door.   Emma turns way and focuses on the teapot (her parents will not drink tea if she creates the hot water from thin air, something she has learned in the course of these meetings). 

“You already know the answer to that or you wouldn’t be here,” she says, taking a seat at the table and waiting for them to join her.  It is strange that, for all their camaraderie beforehand, her father will not speak to her lover now that he is a Dark One.

They make small-talk while the kettle heats about Neal and Henry (who still comes by, but who Regina keeps away from her and Emma does not protest, yet, because it is safer this way) and about everyone in town, and Emma listens as the list extends to some of the dwarves she is not overly fond of.   They dance around the real reason they’re here until Emma can no longer stand it.

“These interventions are becoming tiresome,” Emma says, tapping her fingernails against the table top.

“Emma, they aren’t interventions,” her mother protests, but her father isn’t denying it.

“We know there’s still good in you,” he says.  “Come back to us.  Come back, and be with us.  Be Emma again.”

“I am Emma!” she slams her palms against the table in anger and frustration and just a bit of grief, because this is what it always comes back to.  That she is no longer Emma but she _is_ , and they can’t see it.

“This is who I am now.  Why can’t you love me for me?” she asks, taking a step back and away from the table. 

“Emma, we do love you, but this isn’t who you are – “ her mother starts.

“You don’t love me, but Killian loves me,” Emma tells her mother.  “Killian still loves me and he sees me for who I am.”  She says it over and over again like it should convince them, but they leave still believing she can give up the Darkness to someone else (their protestations that they do love her sound hollow to her).

“Don’t you know I’m trying to keep you safe?” she asks the closed door once her parents leave.  This is her choice, and her duty, and she will keep it inside of her and inside of Killian for as long as she must.

When Killian returns that night, he apologies for making her feel the way that she did (he knows, he always knows) and she accepts him back with open arms.

When he undresses her that night, he finds her wearing his favorite lingerie (red with black embroidery, so dark against her pale skin).  He has his way with her on the couch and she lies back as his head drops to her breasts, teeth and tongue against her flesh, and she feels whole again in a way that she did not when her parents where here. 

“I had visitors,” she says later, running her fingers through the hair that covers his chest.

“Do they still think you’ll change your mind?” he responds, because he knows and understands.  Because there is nothing to hide from Killian.  Because they are one in the same. 

Because she loves him, and he loves her. 

“I don’t know,” she murmurs against his skin.  “I wish I knew.”

 

…

 

What the people of Storybrooke don’t know is that this is a choice, on both of their parts, to stay in the Darkness together.

Emma keeps the Darkness within herself because it is the safest thing to do, because as long as Gold exists there is always the ~~possibility~~ probability that he will try to seek it for himself and so she keeps the sword hidden, keeps her walls up, keeps everyone away.  She lets them think what they will because it is safer for all of them that way.

Killian keeps the Darkness because, after all that he has done, it is the only thing he can do that is right.

 

…

 

“Do you think they’ll ever understand?” Emma asks one night.

They are on his ship, and the winds are whipping past them.  It is storming, but they are dry.  They watch the waves crash against the hull and the dock and the rocks nearby.

He wants to believe that they – her parents, Regina, Henry, the others – will, one day. 

“Maybe,” he says, because he still wants to hope.  “We’re noble, and honorable, in our own way.”

“True,” Emma adds, “but we’re also the bad guys now.”

She holds out her hand, and he passes her his flask. 

…

 

Some days it is easy to love her because she is Emma.

Some days it is not easy, because she is not Emma.

She is the same Emma, with all the traits about her that he loved hidden in the beat of her heart and the way that she looks at him, with affection and love and lust even if the words barely leave her lips anymore (she doesn’t need to tell him for he knows).   She still hesitates before she does something, still cares fiercely for her family in a way that hurts her in light of their recent betrayals.  She still seeks to do good, and he watches the struggle between the selfish desires of the Darkness that brought them here, and the goodness that drew him to her in the first place.

She is a new and different person – indulgent in her sexuality in a way that Killian does not remember from before, when she was buttoned-up and restrained, and he revels in it.  There’s something intoxicating about watching the woman you love feel confident about herself and her needs and wants and it makes him want and need her all the more (he could spend hours between her thighs and he does, reveling in her moans and shudders, in the scratches across his back and the soreness of his muscles). 

Her fingers grip the table in front of him as his hips pound into her from behind, and he catches the look of pure ecstasy that crosses her face as her mouth opens and she moans (louder than ever before and it does things to him, to hear her so _wanton_ ) and her back arches up and her limbs lock and she is tense and he feels his spine snap with her movements, feels his release coming fast enough to shake the foundations of the house (and it does, the drawback of magic that Emma constantly teases him about). 

He collapses on her and then falls to the floor, shaky and spent, and before his back can hit the wood he’s in their soft bed, falling into heaps of pillows and silk sheets.

“Mmm,” Emma purrs, curling up to him and draping her arm across his chest.  Her hips rut softly, slowly against his thigh as she sucks his earlobe, tries to rev him up for another round (another benefit of being a magical being: amazing stamina) but he is done, unable to move, unable to even think about sex again –

  
She realizes this, and slides off the bed, heading to the bathroom and slamming the door, and Killian knows there will be a fight, and the foundations of this home will be shaken again.  He knows this because it has happened before and will happen again but it is the only thing that tells him that somewhere inside they are both themselves, that they haven’t been lost entirely into the Darkness (the more that they scrape at each other’s newly healed wounds, the more that they show they notice, and that they care).

When Emma emerges, it is with harsh words on her lips that she slings at him and he lets them make impact ( _useless, one-handed pirate, drinking problem_ ) because they’re all true, but he knows this and she knows this and only some of them hurt.  They are just words, lost in the fury and lost in the pain (this new Emma does not take rejection with the silence of the one he first loved, does not run away but digs her heels in and stays). 

He knows better.  She knows better.

The walls shake, and the earth quakes, and a storm brews outside as Emma unleashes the fury within her and Killian does his best to not respond, to wait until she spends herself, which happens sooner than later.  Her sneer fades, and her eyes fall, and she mutters, “Oh Killian,” in a way that makes his heart ache for her. 

He pulls her close, tucks her into his embrace, says nothing as he draws patterns on her back with the fingers of his right hand, waiting until her breathing stills and she falls asleep in his arms.  

 

…

 

She loves the way that he closes his eyes after they make love, like he is taking a moment to savor the feeling of them being together.   She knows that feeling all too well, wants to feel it forever, wants to never give it up. 

She loves him so much her heart could burst.

The Darkness has consumed him in a way that it has not consumed her, and it makes him angry sometimes, bitter and morose others, but she never stops loving him. She loves him in the dark hours before the dawn when they don’t sleep but they still lie in bed, telling stories of their pasts that bring tears to each other’s eyes.   She loves him when he learns to cook pancakes, and when he pours too much syrup onto her plate just like she likes.  She loves him when he places his hand upon her shoulder, draws her into him after she sees her parents, or after Henry leaves.   She loves him for how he fights the Darkness, and even when he gives in and does something reckless or foolish or hurtful, and how he regrets it afterwards.

The thing about being a Dark One that no one seems to understand is that your decisions are your own.  There is always the temptation of such power, but it is still your choice to act on such power.

He knows that, and she knows that, but no one else does, and she thinks she loves him all the more because he gets it.

 

 

…

When he becomes the Dark One, Killian didn’t know about the waves and waves of future possibilities stretched out before him, rippling when he brushes a thought one by one, then another, forever and ever into infinity.

It puts everything into perspective (it is strange to go from being so small to being so large in the blink of an eye, but it is not unwelcome).

He brushes his hand against the small of her back, knowing that she wears the silk undergarments that he selected underneath the black leather, just as he wears the shirt she chose, and he will do so again tomorrow (no vest, it gets in the way of more amorous activities).  He can see the fear the townspeople will have when that one annoyingly obvious dwarf sees them and runs into Granny’s (it’s not like they are a threat – they haven’t done anything, they just refuse to be parted) to warn the others, and he stops Emma in front of the diner.

“Let’s give them a show,” he tells her, feeling the hunger and lust coil deep in his stomach when he looks at her (his love, his life, his Emma) and watches as she bites her lip (still coy at times, dominant at others) before she agrees.

Her lips slide against his and he has a moment where he wonders what this is all for  - this show of solidarity, this show of strength – but then her hands are in his hair and all he can think about is the future before him and the ways that he can make her come undone and he doesn’t care what the petty people of this town think because he couldn’t think of spending this immortal life without her.


End file.
